A CrashCourse in Friendship
by akmdreamer
Summary: What if Ginny had accompanied Ron and the twins when they went to "rescue" Harry from Privet Drive in CoS? Would they have become friends? In a car, with nowhere run off to, would Ginny have been forced to overcome her shyness? Two shot! R&R!
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: Yes. Of course. Because after all this time, I've got the rights...Ehm. Not.**

**A/N: Because I was bored. Just another "What if?" sort of thing set in CoS. Oh, and since I've had two friends point it out to me so far: If in the beginning Ginny seems OOC for CoS, I figured, given Ron telling Harry that she "never shuts up, usually", the shy, quiet, elbow-in-the-butter-dish Ginny is just for Harry. So she'll be spunky in the beginning like in later books, but her character will become more recognizable as the "second book Ginny" when she actually meets Harry. Enjoy! R&R**

Perhaps midnight was rather a dramatic time for a secret rendezvous to attempt a rather foolish "rescue mission," however to the three youngest Weasley males, it seemed fitting.

Ron grumbled predictably as Fred pinched, poked, and otherwise coaxed him out from his warm cocoon of quilts, stumbling around to locate sweaters, jeans, and his wand - just in case.

The twins and Ron tiptoed their way down the dark staircase and through the maze of objects that stood between them and the kitchen. As they hurried into the kitchen and closed the door softly behind them, they felt some relief - if they could get out of the house they were home-free, and the door was just there...

There was no chance that they'd be -

"You know, if you want to plan something like this rubbish, I'd suggest you don't do it in full earshot of your sister, yeah?"

- Caught.

"Ginny!" Ron squeaked. "We were just, um..."

"- Getting some water. We couldn't sleep, and -"

"Oh, belt up. Don't you give me that, you prats! Ron sleeps like a rock, I heard him snoring not five minutes ago. And there's no way you all just happened to be up at the same time. Besides, I told you - I _heard _you all planning."

"You'd better not tell Mum, Ginny - we're going to get Harry from his Muggle relatives, and you wouldn't want to botch that up, would you, Gin-kins?" Fred said, waggling his eyebrows playfully.

"I won't tell Mum," Ginny said in a fierce whisper, "but you'll get caught anyway if you go on with that plan of yours."

"What's wrong with it?" George asked, knitting his eyebrows in offence.

Ginny scoffed. "Oh, just about everything. First off, even if you _do _succeed in flying the car from here to Surrey, and back, the sun will just barely be rising. That is, if this goes off without a hitch. Which, it probably won't. Mum may not be up by then, but even if you all are able to get here and up to your beds without anyone noticing...how do you plan on explaining the sudden appearance of Harry bloody Potter tomorrow morning?"

The three boys shifted uneasily, mumbling nonsense about Harry coming up with an excuse.

Ginny sighed.

"Okay, here are our choices. One, we get him and take the heat. Two, we get him and tell Mum and Dad that Ron gave him directions to the house and his Uncle drove him here. Which is, admittedly, pretty pathetic, but it's better than nothing. What do you say?"

"Well, first of all," Ron said, "_we _are not going anywhere. _You _are going back to bed and keeping your mouth shut. But I guess we can try the second one," he added grudgingly.

"Come off it, Ronnie," Fred said. "She can come. She's up, she had the better plan, and she's a better prankster than you," he teased.

George nodded. "Yeah, Gin, you want to come?"

"Nope," Ginny said sarcastically. "I'm perfectly content to sit here on my bum and wait for you idiots to muck things up."

Fred grinned. "Right, then, that's settled. Let's get going!"

And with that, he grabbed Ginny's hand and the lot of them trooped out to the rusty old powder-blue Ford Anglia.

It was soon concluded that the only way to keep the car safely in the air was to all help keep Fred (and each other) awake.

Singing proved useful, because not only did George make a point to all but scream in his twin's ear, but Ron's voice sounded a bit like a Kneazle dying in a hailstorm.

"Bloody hell, Ronnie!" Fred groaned as Ron belted out unashamedly. "If you're going to sing, don't do it in Mermish!"

Ron "harrumphed", but George continued singing, prodding Ginny, who was currently too involved in a huge, satisfying yawn to even murmur the lyrics.

"_Can you dance like a hippogriff? Na na na, na na na, na na na!_" George continued, oblivious.

"ENOUGH!" Ron bellowed finally.

"But Ronnie," George whined, "how are we supposed to keep Freddie awake, if not for your horrible singing?"

"Poke him," Ginny suggested unhelpfully.

"Yeah, lets," Fred piped up in caustic enthusiasm.

"We're almost there, anyway," Ron said, pressing his nose to the glass of the window in what Ginny reflected would be a rather disturbing picture if she were on the outside of the car.

"Budge up, Ron," Ginny said, wriggling until she could see out the window too. What she saw was breathtaking.

"Ooh," she breathed. The city they were flying over was a crisscrossed spider web of a map, goldenrod lights curling through it like drops of early-morning dew. A few cars scuttled like spiders through the mostly-empty streets, their headlights like glowing eyes.

Slowly, they entered Suburbia, the shops and roads becoming fewer, the houses becoming cookie-cutter and painfully tidy.

George frowned, peering out the windshield.

"Now, Privet Drive should be...somewhere around here," he said a little lamely.

Ginny shot him a scathing look. "Oh? Care to elaborate, O High Prankster King?"

"Oi! What am I, then?"

"My trusty advisor and servant," George proclaimed, puffing out his chest like a blowfish and grinning cockily.

"Ahem," Ron interrupted pointedly, peeling his nose off of the window to survey his siblings with annoyance. "We have a problem."

"And no way to solve it but the slow way," Ginny added mournfully.

"And what would that be, sister of mine?" Fred queried.

Ginny shrugged. "Drive around till we find it?"

Ron groaned loudly. "You're _kidding_!"

"Well, who's the one that never got proper directions?" Ginny countered.

"It's not my fault! He hasn't answered a single letter I've sent him this summer!"

Ginny frowned. "Well, that's troubling," she murmured thoughtfully. "But anyway!" she said louder. "If you want to get back for breakfast, we'd better get started."

"Drive," Ron urged Fred immediately at the mention of the morning meal.

It didn't take but a half hour and six close calls with Muggles for the four to locate Privet Drive.

"Tell me you at least know the number," George said anxiously to Ron.

"Yeah, we don't want to go peeping in folks' windows, right?" Fred added, looking as though he might like to.

"It is number...ehm...Four. I think. You know, he might have said two..."

"Ron!" three voices wailed.

"Four! Four! I'm sure of it," said the gangly boy hastily.

Fred slowly maneuvered the car over the immaculate lawn of the house indistinguishable from the others on the block save the large brass number four adorning the wall next to the bland, eggshell white door.

"Oh, how I'd love to let a few garden gnomes loose in that lawn," Fred sighed wistfully as George moaned in longing.

Ginny shook her head. "Some other time. Now, let's focus on finding Harry."

As she said it, she turned from her brothers to hide her widened eyes. _She was about to meet Harry Potter_! And, oh, she was wearing her old faded blue pajamas that used to be Ron's and a gray and emerald Weasley sweater that used to be Bill's, and _had she even remembered to brush her hair_?

With a furtive glance at her brothers to be sure that they were focused solely on attempting to locate the right window, Ginny reached up and yanked her fingers through her long copper mane which was tousled from sleep and George's incessant need to make sure it was sufficiently mussed up every ten minutes or so. She tugged it into a ponytail with a hair tie that had been suffocating her wrist. Wisps like tongues of flame clung to her cheeks and she brushed them off impatiently as Fred parked with a grating screech of brakes in front of a window with...

"_Bars_?" she said incredulously. "_Bars_! What on earth - What kind of people are they?"

"The not-generally-very-nice type," Fred declared with an air of great solemnity.

"Humph," was Ginny's irate reply.

Ron rolled down his window and leaned his torso out to grasp the bars.

"Oi, Mate! Harry!" he hissed to the lump of covers and head of messy black hair in the small cot in the corner of the room.

Harry muttered something unintelligible that sounded like "Du...by..." and rolled over.

"Harry!" Ron persisted, rattling the bars. "C'mon, Harry, wake up!"

"Don' wanna...go away...trying to sleep..."

"Charming," Fred said cheerfully.

"Yeah, Ronnie, he sounds just like you!"

Ginny wasn't listening. She was watching Harry throw an arm over his face, his onyx hair sticking up at all angles, his fingers splayed over his eyes and one flushed cheek.

She ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips and winced, retreating further into the shadows of the car as her brothers renewed their efforts.

_What would it be like to be friends with him_?

The thought came unbidden, but she frowned. Why on earth would he want to be friends with his best mate's baby sister?

Slowly, she built a resolve. She would not act foolishly. She would be friendly, because anything else was stupid and futile.

At that moment, Harry's arm flew off his face and his bright green eyes flew open wide.

Ginny took a deep breath and told herself that she wasn't a fool.

**A/N: This will be a two-shot, nothing more. The next and final chapter will be up...sometime soon. No promises, no deadlines, but it WILL be up. **


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: I wouldn't claim to own it even if I COULD get away with it, honestly. What kind of author wants to take credit for another's work? **

**A/N: Hiya everyone! Thank you for the astonishingly good reviews. Thanks to the motivation that those provided, here's the final chapter! (Um, finally!) :) I hope you enjoy. The last chapter of Magic, Marauders, and Other Misdemeanors will be up in a bit, and once I'm finished with that, I'll start posting **_**Smile, Harry!**_**, which I can't WAIT for! Check out the prequel to it that I posted yesterday, called **_**Dramatics**_**. :) Sooo...R&R!**

Ginny settled into the backseat with Harry and let out a long breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry lean out the open window and wave to his astonished relatives, shouting, "See you next summer!" jovially.

In the mad rush to get Harry safely into the car, she had almost forgotten to be nervous. Her heart had been in her throat and she had yet to look him in the eye (she was afraid that when she did she wouldn't be able to speak coherently), but she hadn't done anything daft yet either.

Harry and her brothers were laughing raucously at the expressions on the Dursleys' faces. Harry turned to her as they calmed and said, "Hi! I'm Harry, and you must be Ginny."

Ginny rubbed her palms on her knees, and gave him a small smile. "Um, yeah," she murmured, ducking her head to hide her flushed cheeks and the frown that indicated that she was furious with herself._ Stupid. Stupid. Stupid._

"I mean," she said more loudly, chalking up her courage and swallowing the feel of rising panic in her throat, "Yes, I am. Pleased to meet you. I hope my brothers haven't fed you too much rubbish about me," she added, still not quite meeting his eyes.

Harry chuckled. "Nah," he said with a grin. "Ron just recons you never stop talking," he teased with smirk.

Ginny felt a blush flood her cheeks, but she said, "Well, with six brothers, it's the only way to get a word in once in awhile."

Then Harry laughed, really laughed, and Ginny had to look up. She sought his eyes with her own and what she saw there made her nervousness worthwhile.

The jade green swirled with silvery melancholy, a deep, sad, loneliness that she was sure the Dursleys had put there. There was something like hope just below the surface, though. Something like joy.

"Oi, Harry, why didn't you write back to me all summer! And what happened - Dad said you got a letter from the Improper Use of Magic Office," Ron said, his curiosity overriding his continued mirth at the plight of the Dursleys.

"I told you - it wasn't me! It was a house-elf," he added a bit sheepishly.

"What?" Fred and George chorused.

"Yeah, a house-elf. You see, a few days ago, Aunt Petunia was hosting some guy and his wife - some big businessman that Uncle Vernon hoped to get an order for his company from. They had me go up to my room and stay quiet because they didn't want the Masons to know I exist. When I got to my room there was Dobby - he's the house-elf - sitting on my bed.

I asked him what he was doing here, and I think he was trying to warn me about some sort of danger at Hogwarts, but he couldn't tell me much - he kept having to punish himself! So anyway, he tried to get me to swear I wouldn't go back to Hogwarts this year, but of course I wouldn't."

Harry paused here, taking a breath and looking around at all the eager, freckled faced looking back at him.

"And so he showed me all the letters that you and Hermione and even Hagrid sent -"

At this point, he was cut off by cries of outrage.

"He was intercepting your mail!" George cried.

"Bloody little bugger!" Ron grumbled furiously.

"Blimey, that elf really doesn't want you there for this year, Harry," Fred whistled.

"I dunno..." Harry murmured, looking thoughtful. "I asked if it was something to do with Voldemort -" the others shuddered "-but he said no. Well, actually, he said it wasn't anything about _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_. I got the feeling he was trying to give me some sort of clue, but I can't fathom what," he finished.

"Well, that's all good and fine, but what's with the Levitation Charm?" Ron inquired impatiently.

"Oh, that was Dobby too," Harry said. "When I wouldn't promise not to go back to Hogwarts, he ran out of my room and into the kitchen and I followed him. There was this great big pudding that Petunia had resting on the counter, and Dobby snapped his fingers and levitated it into the living room, over Mrs. Mason's head. He - ehm...Well, lets just say Vernon didn't get his deal," Harry finished with a hint of laughter at the memory, despite the warning from the Ministry.

"That's why there were bars on the window?" Ginny piped up, looking at him curiously but still not quite able to forget to whom she was speaking.

"Yeah," Harry said heavily. "The only reason they hadn't taken to locking me in my room before that was because they didn't know I wasn't allowed to do magic out of school - they thought I'd turn the lot of them into dung beetles or something."

"Not a bad idea, in entirety," George muttered mutinously. "Those gits."

Fred grinned. "Plan revenge later. Get back before Mum notices now," he said with a devilish grin.

"Whose elf was he?" Ron asked. "Did Dobby say?"

"No," Harry replied slowly, "but he did keep almost saying...things about his masters. Bad things. But every time he got close to something, he started banging his head against a wall, literally!" he finished frustratedly.

"Is there anyone who has a grudge against you at school?" George asked as Fred fiddled with the compass on the dashboard.

"Yes!" Ron and Harry said in unison, Ron in triumph, Harry grimly.

"Well, who?"

"Draco Malfoy," said Harry with distaste.

"Slimy git," Ron added dispassionately.

"Malfoy? Malfoy? Is he the son of Lucius Malfoy?"

"I s'pose she must be, it's not exactly a common name, is it?" Harry said. "Who's Lucius Malfoy?" he added.

"He's a big name in the Ministry of Magic. He does lots of dealings with the Minister - money-passing and all that," Ginny said, scrunching up her nose.

"Bribery?" Harry inquired.

"You could call it that, but he's slippery. Real good at his games, so it doesn't look dishonest," the other replied.

"Dad says he was one of those in You-Know-Who's inner circle when he was powerful," Ron added, twisting in his spot between George and the door and clutching the headrest to lean his chin on the back of his seat and survey Harry. "But he claimed to be doing it under curse. Load of rubbish," he added quickly. "Some people weren't doing his bidding willingly, but Lucius Malfoy wasn't one of them," he said conclusively.

"So d'you reckon Dobby was Draco's elf?" Harry asked the four youngest Weasleys.

Ron shrugged. "Guess we'll just see what happens," he said bracingly, seeming to know that Harry was feeling rather foolish for worrying over the elf's warning so much when it seemed like such a likely prank for the Malfoy kid to play.

Ginny's thoughts weren't on Dobby, his warning, or the Malfoys any longer. Her hands were clenched in her lap and her head was ducked, hiding her face in a flood of crimson hair.

_This was a bad idea_, was all she could think. _And not because at this point it's pretty much inevitable that we get caught_.

The boys' discussion turned to a fuzzy murmur in the back of her consciousness, the white noise of a badly-tuned radio. Ginny felt herself slowly dissolve into a bundle of nerves, withdrawing from the conversation.

_What are you doing? _she asked herself. She took a slow deep breath and opened her eyes.

The car was angled down and Fred's navy eyes were alight with concentration and childish excitement. Ginny leaned forward in her seat as the five of them were jostled, the front wheels bouncing roughly against the tawny drive leading to the Burrow's front door before the back one's touched down and the Ford's momentum carried it forward a few metres more.

"Safe!" cheered George as they ground to a stop and threw open their respective doors, stumbling into the now-bright early morning and shielding their eyes from the suddenly undiluted sunlight.

Ginny felt a warm body crash into her own and reached up instinctively to clutch the shoulders of the unknown person, causing them to both to tumble to the ground. Flames licked Ginny's cheeks as she found herself sprawled in the dirt with the older boy crushing her. He propped himself up and her blush intensified as their eyes met, hers reflecting mortification, his sparkling emerald amusement that bubbled like Firewhiskey.

"Sorry," they blurted together, and Harry laughed.

"Oh, well...thanks for making my landing softer," he teased.

"What are friends for?" she quipped back, realizing her words just a second too late. "I-I mean..." she stammered.

"Well, that's good. If you want to be friends, that is," he offered anxiously.

Ginny nodded fervently, relieved and ecstatic, and, Merlin blast it all, blushing again.

"Brilliant!" Harry chirped happily, scrambling up and offering Ginny his hand just as the door of the Burrow was blasted open as though it were a piece of parchment and not thick, weathered wood.

"Bloody hell," grumbled Ron.

"Brace yourselves, mates," Fred muttered, looking rather green as Mrs. Weasley marched towards the group, her red hair flying around her flushed face wildly, her glare menacing and looking remarkably like a saber-toothed tiger.

"It was nice knowing you," George added to Harry, who grinned nervously.

"Where - have - you - _BEEN_?" Molly's tirade began.

Ginny, however, didn't seem bothered by the beating her eardrums were enduring.

_Friends...Friends!_ her eleven-year-old mind squealed, giddy with glee. _Harry Potter wants to be friends with _me_!_

The hero-worship didn't end there. The blushing and stuttering were still present from time to time. Ginny's stomach still leapt when Harry smiled at her, and her heart still did somersaults when he spoke. She still strove to make him laugh, and struggled to speak. All this would take time to change, but what was was enough, because friends were patient. Friends put up with each other.

Harry and Ginny drove each other crazy. They argued, Harry being stubborn and Ginny a spitfire. Their tempers clashed occasionally. But they also ended up knowing each other better than anyone else.

Even when it grew to more, their friendship never died.


End file.
